eBOS participated in the ISMED-CLIM Kick-Off Meeting in Nicosia, Cyprus!

The ISMED-CLIM project held its kick-off meeting on November 04th and 5th in Nicosia, Cyprus. This Research and Innovation Action project, funded under HORIZON Europe, officially began on November 1st, 2024 and will run for a total of 48 months.

Mr. Sozos Karageorgiou, Senior R&D Project Manager & Dr. Rafaella Elia, R&D Project Manager, represented eBOS at the meeting, which was led by the Project Coordinator, Prof. Panayiotis Yiallouros, Professor of Pediatrics at the Medical School of the University of Cyprus (UCY). The meeting was attended by the project’s 27 partners and included presentations by the partners on the project’s vision and objectives, as well as an overview of the overall project expectations and guidelines by the European Commission’s Project Officer. The partners also discussed the project’s work plan, challenges, risks, and implementation schedule.

Climate change poses one of the greatest risks to human health, with rising air pollution, increasing surface temperatures, and more frequent extreme weather events. The Mediterranean region, situated between temperate and arid climates, has been identified as one of Europe’s climate change hotspots by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The region’s average temperature increase surpasses the global average, and frequent extreme temperature events and forest fires, as reported by the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT), impact both mortality and morbidity.

The challenges towards addressing climate change impacts in Mediterranean region, include the mobilization of local stakeholders and citizens regarding the extreme health risks and the need to implement mitigation solutions. Moreover, the existing alert systems for reducing exposure to heat and air pollution, are not efficient. Another challenge is the utilization of existing vector disease models to generate short-and long-term assessment in order to keep high risk populations safe. Further, risk assessment, emergency plans and mitigation solutions are missing. Finally, effective evidence-based forecast, along with early warning and early response systems and decision-making models are also a challenge.

The vision of ISMED – CLIM is to address all the aforementioned challenges by focusing mainly on increasing the preparedness and ability of health systems in the Mediterranean region. In this context, knowledge, policy decision and action-oriented tools will be developed in order to deliver safe and effective care to citizens, regarding the ongoing climate change.